Droupadi Murmu’s appointment as the first Indian President belonging to the Scheduled Tribes is being hailed all around as a triumph of the country’s fundamental tenets of inclusivity and equal opportunity. On 25 July 2017, when Ram Nath Kovind took oath as the 14th President of India, his Dalit identity was similarly drummed up, particularly by the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as an example of its commitment towards the backward castes.
It was felt that the appointment of Kovind, a former Supreme Court lawyer, Rajya Sabha member, and Governor of Bihar – and also a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) faithful – as head of state was a political masterstroke on the part of the ruling party. It was also seen as a step that would go a long way in mitigating the BJP’s anti-Dalit image – an image that had become reinforced by the furore over the suicide of Rohith Vemula, a Dalit student at the University of Hyderabad, in 2016, and the flogging of several members of a Dalit family on the pretext of “cow protection” in Una in Gujarat the same year.
As India gets a new President, it is time to look back on Ram Nath Kovind's term and take stock of what this soft-spoken, mild-mannered head of state will be remembered for.
In the last five years, India was faced with several tumultuous events, starting from the CAA to the abrogation of Article 370 to farmers' struggle. In each of these cases, Kovind supported the government steadfastly.
Kovind has not been known to speak up even when a particularly heinous offence against a Dalit person came to light. This is striking given he was so insistently placed in the context of his caste.
No matter what the subject, Kovind’s words have never betrayed a single note of dissonance from the government’s gung-ho messaging.
Will Droupadi Murmu build on Kovind’s legacy or find her own voice and carve out a distinct and emphatic path?
Today, as President Kovind readies to leave the Rashtrapati Bhavan to make way for his worthy successor, Droupadi Murmu, it is time to look back on his term and take stock of what this soft-spoken, mild-mannered head of state will be remembered for.
Unstinting Support for the Govt
India went through several tumultuous events during the five years of President Kovind’s tenure as the country’s head of state. In August 2019, the BJP government at the Centre took the controversial decision to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which had granted special status to Jammu and Kashmir. Soon after, the country was convulsed with protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) and the National Register of Citizens (NRC). The COVID-19 pandemic hit India in March 2020, destroying thousands of lives and livelihoods. Further, even as the pandemic raged on, starting in end-2020, there were widespread farmers’ protests against three farm laws brought in by the government.
In each of these cases, the President stood behind the government and supported its decisions. He put his stamp of approval on the repeal of Article 370 and in multiple speeches thereafter, referred to the move as a landmark step that made the people of India happy. In his address to Parliament on 31 January 2020, he termed the CAA, which was roiling the country at the time, “a historic law”. In the same speech, he said, “My government is taking strong steps for making this decade India’s decade.” Kovind has also frequently lauded the government’s efforts in tackling the pandemic and in vaccinating large swathes of the population.
In short, no matter what the subject, Kovind’s words have never betrayed a single note of dissonance from the government’s gung-ho messaging about the state of the nation.
It is of course true that the constitutional post of the President of India is largely ceremonial and that he or she is expected to act on the instruction of the government of the day, led by the Council of Ministers. That said, the office of the President is supposed to hold its allegiance to the Constitution above all else. In keeping with that objective, other Presidents before Kovind have been known to occasionally voice their disapproval of the government and its acts of commission or omission.
Being an All-Willing Spectator
Kovind’s immediate predecessor, the late Pranab Mukherjee, was remarkably outspoken. From pulling up the NDA government for its over-use of ordnances to push legislation through, to expressing his dismay over the climate of intolerance that had descended upon India in the wake of the Dadri lynching in 2015, to ticking off the Opposition for disrupting parliamentary proceedings, Mukherjee spoke his mind on several occasions and repeatedly stressed the need to safeguard the country’s constitutional values of inclusivity and diversity against intolerance and mob frenzy.
“There should always be room for the argumentative Indian, but never the intolerant Indian,” the late President said.
We have not heard similar statesman-like words from President Kovind. It could be that he never felt the need to sound a cautionary note because he was always fully satisfied with the way the government was running the country.
For Dalits, Little Changed With the Election of a 'Dalit President'
But what of the increasing incidence of crimes against Dalits? Should President Kovind have weighed in on that? While it is problematic to look at a person’s achievements through the prism of their caste identity, since Kovind, India’s second Dalit President after KR Narayanan, was so insistently placed in the context of his caste, it is perhaps not unreasonable to examine his contribution in protecting the interests of Dalits.
It is a fact that across India, incidents of assault, rape and murder of Dalits occur almost daily. As many as 1,38,825 cases of crimes against Dalits were registered between 2018 and 2020, Union Minister Ramdas Athawale told Parliament in March this year. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), in 2020, crimes against Scheduled Caste communities rose by 9.4% over the previous year, while those against Scheduled Tribes went up by 9.3% during the same period.
These are sobering statistics. However, President Kovind has not been known to speak up even when a particularly heinous offence against a Dalit person came to light. This rather puts paid to the valorisation of his own Dalit identity and the assumption that as President, he was to be a forceful voice in support of his community.
Will Murmu Find Her Own Voice?
Even though India has been buffeted by economic, social, political and communal tensions in these last five years, even though there have been mass agitations and unrest, Kovind’s presidency itself has been calm waters. It has been an exercise in mildness, marked by anodyne speeches and unstinting support for the government.
It will be interesting to see whether India’s next President, Droupadi Murmu, builds on Kovind’s legacy or finds her own voice and carves out a distinct and emphatic path.
(Shuma Raha is a journalist and author. She tweets @ShumaRaha. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for them.)
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